Game From Scratch - Cool Thing of the WeekGameDev made easy...ish. Game programming starts here.http://www.gamefromscratch.com/
http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specificationBlogEngine.NET 2.7.0.0en-UShttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/opml.axdhttp://www.dotnetblogengine.net/syndication.axdMikeGame From Scratch0.0000000.000000Cool thing of the week: Week 9<p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Got an Android device and dreamed about coding while out and about?&#160; Until now your choices have been slim to none, but that’s changed with the release of <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&amp;hl=en">AIDE</a>.<a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=aide.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 15px 0px 15px 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="aide" border="0" alt="aide" align="right" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=aide_thumb.png" width="128" height="128" /></a>&#160; What is AIDE?&#160; It’s a complete Java toolchain, including IDE that runs <em>on your Android device.</em>&#160; Frankly, it’s really really really cool.&#160; Did I mention yet, it’s very cool?&#160; Cause it is!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Everything you need to create an Android app is included, from a text editor with full auto-completion, full compiler, app signing.&#160; Perhaps more impressively, it also includes a full Git implementation and the ability to load Eclipse projects from your DropBox account.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Here is AIDE in action on my Samsung Galaxy Note:</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=export_08.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="export_08" border="0" alt="export_08" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=export_08_thumb.png" width="414" height="660" /></a></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>On my Transformer, with full keyboard, it is actually a remarkably desktop-like development experience, but even more shocking, developing on my phone was actually do-able.&#160; Not something I would want to do every day, but editing code was very natural.&#160; The zooming feature is extremely smooth.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Now ready to be really impressed?</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>First off… it’s free!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Second, it’s just over 6MB in size!&#160; An entire Java toolchain, including IDE in under 6 MB?&#160; Extremely impressive.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>AIDE is still currently in beta, but <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui&amp;hl=en">well worth checking out</a>!&#160; You do require Android 2.2 or higher.</p>http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/04/10/Cool-thing-of-the-week-Week-9.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/04/10/Cool-thing-of-the-week-Week-9.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=ca8c2854-f360-4024-abb7-f4616742a332Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:03:56 -0500Cool Thing of the Weekmikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=ca8c2854-f360-4024-abb7-f4616742a3320http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=ca8c2854-f360-4024-abb7-f4616742a332http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/04/10/Cool-thing-of-the-week-Week-9.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=ca8c2854-f360-4024-abb7-f4616742a332Cool thing of the Week: Week 8<p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Hey, I’m on time this time! Well, almost…</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>This weeks cool thing is in an area where there aren’t too many options, audio capture and manipulation tools.&#160; On the “pro” side, the dominant player is probably <a href="http://www.avid.com/US/products/family/Pro-Tools/compare">Pro-Tools</a>, which is in a word <em>expensive</em>.&#160; With pricing starting at 700$ and going up from there, it is out of the reach of many peoples budget.&#160; Truth of the matter is, it’s probably overkill for most people too.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>In the mid range you have other, slightly cheaper options such as <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/soundbooth/">Adobe's SoundBooth</a> or if you are the Mac type, <a href="http://www.apple.com/logicpro/">Apple’s Logic Pro</a>.&#160; Both of these apps sell for about 200$.&#160; If you’ve noticed one thing about me though, it’s I like free stuff, I really like free stuff.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Thankfully there is a free option, and it’s pretty damned good.&#160; This weeks CTofW is <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>.&#160; In addition to being a rather clever pun, it is also a “free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.&#160; It is available on Windows, Linux and Mac.&#160; </p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><strong>Audacity in action editing a Wav file:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_232.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_thumb_233.png" width="600" height="500" /></a></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>As is pretty typical of open-source projects, it’s a bit on the ugly side, although compared to it’s open-source peers, it is the belle of the ball.&#160; However, unlike most open sourced projects, it’s incredibly well documented.&#160; In addition to the included documentation, there are actually a few published books including <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847197647/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwflexamailc-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1847197647">Getting Started with Audacity 1.3</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593272707/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwflexamailc-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1593272707">The book of Audacity</a>.&#160; It’s a good thing too, even though Audacity is pretty simple to get started with, it’s an amazingly deep program.&#160; The short form description for their site goes as follows:</p> <blockquote> <p>&#160;</p> <p>You can use Audacity to:</p> <ul> <li>Record live audio. </li> <li>Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs. </li> <li>Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files. </li> <li>Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together. </li> <li>Change the speed or pitch of a recording. </li> <li>And more! </li> </ul> </blockquote> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Instead of going into depth here about what this program can do, I’ll refer you to their <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features">feature list.</a>&#160; And I promise you, that list just scratches the surface.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>So, if you are looking for a audio capture and manipulation application and are doing things on a budget, you really can’t do better than <a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a>.&#160; Seeing as it’s free and only a 20MB download, what have you got to lose?</p>http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/03/21/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-8.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/03/21/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-8.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=b27a48a5-f05b-40a2-8bf0-514d975ac0fdWed, 21 Mar 2012 09:19:54 -0500Cool Thing of the Weekmikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=b27a48a5-f05b-40a2-8bf0-514d975ac0fd3http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=b27a48a5-f05b-40a2-8bf0-514d975ac0fdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/03/21/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-8.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=b27a48a5-f05b-40a2-8bf0-514d975ac0fdCool thing of the Week: Week 7<p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Ok, I realize my definition of a week may vary from what you might traditionally expect.&#160; When I started this concept I thought I would find things all the time, and winnowing it down to a<a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=PyBook.jpg"><img style="margin: 15px 0px 0px 15px; display: inline; float: right" title="PyBook" alt="PyBook" align="right" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=PyBook_thumb.jpg" width="179" height="224" /></a> single item would be the biggest challenge!&#160; Hunting down cool things is trickier than I thought!&#160; This “week” was quite easy, it was brought to my attention using the contact form on this site.&#160; If you have something you think other developers ( and developers in training ) would be interested in, send it to me!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Anyways, enough about my apparent inability to tell time, on to the cool thing.&#160; Are you interested in learning game programming but are intimidated by the gigantic mountain of details ahead of you?&#160; I understand your frustration, it’s an overwhelming subject with so much to learn and so many options available to you, options that you really aren’t well equipped to answer yet.&#160; This is why I put together my <a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/08/04/I-want-to-be-a-game-developer.aspx">beginners guide</a> and you may notice that one of the languages I suggested was Python, although that section was pretty sparse.&#160; Well this item goes a long way towards fixing that.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Author Albert Sweigart has created not just one, but two Python books about learning to program games using python.&#160; The first book teaches the Python language by building a number of classic “basic” games including Hangman, Tic Tac Toe and Reversi.&#160; Then around chapter 17, he starts to address more advanced games using the popular <a href="http://pygame.org">Pygame</a> library.&#160; Three chapters is far too little time to deal with this subject, and clearly the author agrees, as the entirety of the second book is about using Python with PyGame.&#160; </p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>The second book creates much more advanced games, while still teaching Python concepts by example.&#160; In this book you create a minesweeper-esque game, a SNAFU/Nibble clone, a 2D Katamari Damacy’ish with squirrels game, a box pusher type game and a handful more.&#160; It is slightly more involved than the first book, but together you should have no problems with it. The author set out to write a book that a 12 year old could understand and I believe he has succeeded.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>At this point you may be wonder why exactly I’ve featured these particular books, there are literally thousands of books out there.&#160; Good question and how is this for an answer…&#160; They are free!&#160; Al has made both books available under the creative commons license completely free, by almost any definition of the word.&#160; You can head over to <a href="http://inventwithpython.com/index.html">InventWithPython.com</a> and read either book online, or download them as PDF.&#160; Absolutely no strings attached.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>That said, if you are the type that prefers a physical book in your hands, or you want to reward the author for his hard work, both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982106017/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwflexamailc-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0982106017">Invent Your Own Computer Game with Python</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1469901730/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwflexamailc-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1469901730">Making Games with Python and PyGame</a> are both available on Amazon, for less than 25$.&#160; Looking at the reviews, it seems both of this books accomplished what they set out to do.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>So, if you are just starting out or are picking up the Python language, these two books are a very good place to start.&#160; Really, at a grand total price tag of 0$, what have you got to lose?</p>http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/03/07/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-7.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/03/07/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-7.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=f62477d8-11dc-4436-a421-5e5df5f865d3Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:20:00 -0500Cool Thing of the WeekMikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=f62477d8-11dc-4436-a421-5e5df5f865d30http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=f62477d8-11dc-4436-a421-5e5df5f865d3http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/03/07/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-7.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=f62477d8-11dc-4436-a421-5e5df5f865d3Cool thing of the Week: Week 6<p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Sculpting is all the rage in 3D these days, and for good reason.&#160; You can quickly and fairly easily make incredibly detailed models in a very intuitive manner.&#160; Many professional studios<a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=sculptris_logo.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 15px 0px 0px 30px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="sculptris_logo" border="0" alt="sculptris_logo" align="right" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=sculptris_logo_thumb.png" width="192" height="187" /></a> have slotted a sculpting application like <a href="http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=13565063&amp;siteID=123112" target="_blank">Autodesk Mudbox</a> or <a href="http://www.pixologic.com/home.php" target="_blank">Pixologic ZBrush</a> in their workflows.&#160; Only one catch… got 800$?&#160; In the world of 3D, that’s rather affordable, but in the world of my wallet, that’s a bit more harsh!&#160; Of course Blender, Maya, Max et al. all have sculpting features, but they simply don’t approach the abilities of a dedicated application.&#160; Fortunately for us, there exists a free option, <a href="http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/" target="_blank">Sculptris</a>.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_189.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 30px 0px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_thumb_189.png" width="600" height="339" /></a></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Sculptris began life as a hobby project of Tomas Pettersson, in an attempt to make a free version of ZBrush.&#160; Thing is, he did a damned good job, so good in fact that Pixologic hired him on.&#160; Even cooler for all of us, Pixologic made Sculptris on of their official products and continued to offer it for free!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>So essentially, you can think of Sculptris as ZBrush lite, but don’t go thinking it’s a demo version or a toy, it is a remarkably capable and streamlined application.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>If you have never used a 3D sculpting app before, its rather like modeling with virtual clay.&#160; With Sculptris you start with either a flat plane or a 3d sphere, then start pushing, pulling, smoothing, creasing away until your model takes shape.&#160; It really is a remarkably fluid way to work.&#160; Tools are kept to a minimum, in Sculptris you model using: Crease, Rotate, Scale, Draw, Flatten, Grab, Inflate, Pinch and Smooth.&#160; That’s it, and frankly, that’s about all you need.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Once you are done shaping your 3D model, now it’s a matter of texturing.&#160; You click the Paint button, choose the texture size you want it to create and it goes to work for a few minutes.&#160; Once your texture map is generated, you can now paint in 3D using the same interface.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <h6>Sculptris is Paint mode ( click for larger image )</h6> <p><a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_190.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_thumb_190.png" width="600" height="340" /></a></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Performance is good as is feedback.&#160; I have never experienced a crash, although I have experienced some oddity using Sculptris on my laptop in power saving mode ( the buttons are all in the wrong location and the top menu bar disappears ), but then, using Scultpris in power saving mode isn’t particularly a brilliant idea, so I wouldn’t worry too much.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>You can of course also import your own models, this is especially useful for creating displacement maps for your lower polygon work.&#160; Sculptris supports importing OBJ ( wavefront, format, but nearly ubiquitous at this point )&#160; as well as GoZ format ( ZBrush format ).&#160; You can also export in the same two file formats.&#160; Be careful though, your exported files aren’t going to be “light”.&#160; Consider the model in the screenshot, it was imported as a 200K OBJ, and after a few minutes in Sculptris when it was exported&#160; it was 14MB in size.</p>http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/02/10/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-6.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/02/10/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-6.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=7b37b6e3-2c83-4a0e-a434-69d71a242e39Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:09:00 -0500Cool Thing of the WeekArtMikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=7b37b6e3-2c83-4a0e-a434-69d71a242e390http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=7b37b6e3-2c83-4a0e-a434-69d71a242e39http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/02/10/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-6.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=7b37b6e3-2c83-4a0e-a434-69d71a242e39Cool thing of the Week: Week 5<p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>OK, so I may just be late to the party on this CtotW, as this product is currently one of the darlings of the programming world but I ignored it completely until now.&#160; What is it I ignored so completely and now am rather enamored of?</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><a href="http://nodejs.org/" target="_blank">Node.js</a></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>What exactly is Node?&#160; Well basically they ripped the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/v8/" target="_blank">V8 Engine</a> ( yeah, it’s actually called that ) that powers the Javascript engine in Google Chrome and instead used it for creating<a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=logo-light_2.png"><img style="margin: 15px 0px 15px 15px; display: inline; float: right" title="logo-light" alt="logo-light" align="right" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=logo-light_thumb_2.png" width="240" height="65" /></a> server side applications, like you would traditionally make using ASP.Net or JSP.&#160; In addition to providing a server side Javascript implementation, they have implemented a number of modules ( in C++ ) to handle many common tasks, from creating an HTTP server to cryptography.&#160; You can of course create your own <a href="http://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/addons.html" target="_blank">add-ons in C++</a>.&#160; Of course, as with all things Google, the build process is a bit convoluted and poorly documented, especially for Windows based developers.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>So, why exactly have I ignored Node until now?&#160; Frankly, I hate developing in Javascript, or at least I thought I did.&#160; Reality is, I hate developing in Javascript <strong><em>for browsers!</em></strong>&#160; Once you move yourself out of the browser, it becomes a much more pleasant experience!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>What exactly makes Node so enticing?&#160; You can make light weight, simple, scalable and asynchronous servers with absolutely no other software required.&#160; Simple run node.exe “yourAppName” and you have a running server, no need to install Java or configure a web server.&#160; Consider the following Hello World, a completely functional web server in just a few lines of code:</p> <p>&#160;</p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:9D7513F9-C04C-4721-824A-2B34F0212519:ccf21693-4921-4734-b1d3-637c6050cbf1" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><pre style=" width: 560px; height: 140px;background-color:White;overflow: visible;"><div><!--
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--><span style="color: #0000FF;">var</span><span style="color: #000000;"> http </span><span style="color: #000000;">=</span><span style="color: #000000;"> require(</span><span style="color: #000000;">'</span><span style="color: #000000;">http</span><span style="color: #000000;">'</span><span style="color: #000000;">);
http.createServer(</span><span style="color: #0000FF;">function</span><span style="color: #000000;"> (req, res) {
res.writeHead(</span><span style="color: #000000;">200</span><span style="color: #000000;">, {</span><span style="color: #000000;">'</span><span style="color: #000000;">Content-Type</span><span style="color: #000000;">'</span><span style="color: #000000;">: </span><span style="color: #000000;">'</span><span style="color: #000000;">text/plain</span><span style="color: #000000;">'</span><span style="color: #000000;">});
res.end(</span><span style="color: #000000;">'</span><span style="color: #000000;">Hello World\n</span><span style="color: #000000;">'</span><span style="color: #000000;">);
}).listen(</span><span style="color: #000000;">8124</span><span style="color: #000000;">, </span><span style="color: #000000;">&quot;</span><span style="color: #000000;">127.0.0.1</span><span style="color: #000000;">&quot;</span><span style="color: #000000;">);</span></div></pre><!-- Code inserted with Steve Dunn's Windows Live Writer Code Formatter Plugin. http://dunnhq.com --></div>
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<p>Pretty simple eh?</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>There are a few downsides though.&#160; Since Node.exe runs as a single process, so will your application.&#160; This means you are tied to a single core per instance of node.&#160; Also, tooling support is a bit lacking.&#160; I tried out the excellent (in concept ) <a href="http://c9.io/" target="_blank">Cloud9</a> online IDE but simply put, it didn’t work.&#160; I really hope this changes soon, as a web based IDE sounds about perfect.&#160; I am currently trying out <a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm/" target="_blank">WebStorm</a>, but have formed no opinion yet.&#160; Book support is quite limited as well, with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/184951514X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwflexamailc-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=184951514X" target="_blank">Node Web Development</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1449398588/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wwwflexamailc-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1449398588" target="_blank">Node: Up and Running: Scalable Server-Side Code with JavaScript</a>&#160; being the only two published books at the moment, although a number of others are in the works.&#160; No doubt as Node matures, so will the educational and tooling support available for it.</p>
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<p>I am going to do a quick test of using Node.js as a simple game server for an SFML based game.&#160; I will update here accordingly when (if) that is complete.</p>http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/26/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-5.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/26/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-5.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=fb10074f-cff9-435a-9b2f-60e894fc59b4Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:18:51 -0500Cool Thing of the Weekmikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=fb10074f-cff9-435a-9b2f-60e894fc59b41http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=fb10074f-cff9-435a-9b2f-60e894fc59b4http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/26/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-5.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=fb10074f-cff9-435a-9b2f-60e894fc59b4Cool thing of the Week: Week 4<p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><a href="http://www.khanacademy.org/"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 30px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" align="right" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_169.png" width="244" height="72" /></a></p> <p>One of the biggest stumbling blocks for people learning to create games is the required mathematics.&#160; A common question people ask is where is the best place to learn, the <a href="http://www.khanacademy.org/">KhanAcademy</a> is certainly a very good place to start.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>They literally have thousands of video tutorials, over a wide variety of subjects including thousands of math specific tutorials.&#160; Covering the gamut from early grade school up to university level topics.&#160; Best of all it is completely free.&#160; In their own words:</p> <p>&#160;</p> <blockquote> <p>The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.</p> <p>All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.</p> </blockquote> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Here is an example video on vector dot product.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WNuIhXo39_k?version=3&amp;feature=player_embedded"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WNuIhXo39_k?version=3&amp;feature=player_embedded" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object> <br /> <br /> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>So, if you are looking for a great place to pick up some math ( or chemistry, SAT, art history… ) skills, the KhanAcademy is a very good place to start.</p>http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/14/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-4.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/14/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-4.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=f16d2e7c-182c-490e-9198-56f5d8784a89Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:06:02 -0500Cool Thing of the Weekmikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=f16d2e7c-182c-490e-9198-56f5d8784a890http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=f16d2e7c-182c-490e-9198-56f5d8784a89http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/14/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-4.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=f16d2e7c-182c-490e-9198-56f5d8784a89Cool thing of the Week: Week 3<p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Mobile development is certainly hot these days and as a result a number of mobile frameworks have popped up allowing you to target multiple devices with a single code base.&#160; Problem is, it’s not just one or two frameworks we are talking about, more like 20 or 30, maybe even more!&#160;&#160; Trying to pick the right one is a simply daunting task!&#160; You need to factor a number of things in such as quality, features available,&#160; price, languages supported and perhaps most important of all, the platforms supported.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Fortunately there is a tool that can greatly help.&#160; This handy matrix at <a href="http://www.markus-falk.com/mobile-frameworks-comparison-chart/">markus-falk.com</a> breaks down many of the available mobile frameworks.&#160; Down the left hand side are all of the various Frameworks, then across the top are the platforms they support, the languages you can program in, the features they support ( such as Accelerometer, Camera, etc.. ), as well as if it is freely available and if it is open source.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><strong>Snapshot of a portion of the matrix:</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_124.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_thumb_125.png" width="600" height="285" /></a>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>He also provided a handy filtering tool, oddly named “Start Wizard”.&#160; You can check off your criteria here and it will dynamically update the matrix to include only the frameworks that meet your criteria.&#160; Here is the wizard in action:</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_125.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_thumb_126.png" width="600" height="230" /></a></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Simply click the features you require, hit Find Framework and PRESTO!&#160; a list of Frameworks compatible with your selection.&#160;&#160; The list is by no means perfect.&#160; First off, it is very iOS centric, but given that iOS is possibly the most popular OS for mobile development, I suppose this makes sense.&#160;&#160; Perhaps most glaringly, it doesn’t tell you if the framework can target PC, Linux or Mac, which is a shame as that is a very important detail to many people ( myself included ).&#160; Finally there are frameworks missing ( again, this goes back to the iOS centric aspect ), such as mobile web apps like Flash and Silverlight, or projects like MonoGame and ExEn.&#160; Additionally all the C++ specific frameworks like SIO or Marmalade are absent as well.&#160; I can understand why Flash and Silverlight would be left out, but then why was jQuery included?</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Faults aside, this handy tool provides a wonderful starting point if you are looking for a cross platform mobile framework.&#160; Even better, much of the results are populated programmatically, so the data should stay fairly relevant as time goes on.&#160; Just be sure to keep in mind, other options exist!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>So go ahead and <a href="http://www.markus-falk.com/mobile-frameworks-comparison-chart/">check it out.</a></p>http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/04/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-3.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/04/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-3.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=6bd08855-a6db-4da6-aa55-6cd43fc7816bWed, 04 Jan 2012 11:54:06 -0500Cool Thing of the Weekmikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=6bd08855-a6db-4da6-aa55-6cd43fc7816b0http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=6bd08855-a6db-4da6-aa55-6cd43fc7816bhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2012/01/04/Cool-thing-of-the-Week-Week-3.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=6bd08855-a6db-4da6-aa55-6cd43fc7816bCool Thing of the Week: Week 2<p>&nbsp;</p>
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<p>This week&rsquo;s cool thing isn&rsquo;t new, not even close in fact.&nbsp; It is actually 3 years old and has a few<a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_122.png"><img style="background-image: none; margin: 15px 0px 0px 60px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_thumb_123.png" alt="image" width="118" height="165" align="right" border="0" /></a> thousand alternatives, also freely available.&nbsp; So then, why the hell am I show casing it?&nbsp; Frankly because a) it&rsquo;s damned good work b) programmers are always looking for alternatives to programmer art and this is the perfect source!</p>
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<p>Without further ado, let me present to you a <a href="http://members.gamedev.net/Prinz_Eugn/AircraftSprites.zip">Free Airplane Sprite Pack (download link)</a>. Years ago, 2008 in fact, Gamedev user Prinz Eugn released a selection of hand painted airplane sprites for free use <a href="http://www.gamedev.net/topic/495808-free-airplane-sprite-pack/page__p__4897055__hl__sprite__fromsearch__1#entry4897055">in this thread.</a>&nbsp; I mention it again because the links have recently been re-established.&nbsp; The work is very good, much better than a lot of freely available sprite art and includes a number of angles and frames to work with.&nbsp; Below is one such sample sprite sheet:</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_123.png"><img style="background-image: none; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-top: 0px; border: 0px;" title="image" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=image_thumb_124.png" alt="image" width="558" height="290" border="0" /></a></p>
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<p>So, if you are looking at creating a 2D game and are looking for some artwork to start out with, this is a very good place to start.&nbsp; It is a lot easier to keep yourself motivated when your game looks good.</p>
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<p>Again, the <a href="http://members.gamedev.net/Prinz_Eugn/AircraftSprites.zip">download link.</a></p>
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<p><strong>EDIT: </strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">As was rightly pointed out in the comments, there is a condition on using the sprites. &nbsp;If you use them in a released product, contact and credit the author. &nbsp;I think you will agree this is a very small thing to ask. &nbsp;For more details on the author, you can see more of his work <a href="http://prinzeugn.deviantart.com/">here</a>&nbsp;or you can ( or at least, could ) email him at&nbsp;<span style="background-color: #fafbfc; color: #282828; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">prinz_eugn [@] hotmail.com. &nbsp;Frankly, if you use his sprites even in a non-shipping project, I highly recommend you send him even just a quick "thanks man!" email. &nbsp;In running this site I have received some of those and I can't begin to explain how nice they are to receive.</span><span style="background-color: #fafbfc; color: #282828; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">&nbsp;</span></span></p>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/12/29/Cool-Thing-of-the-Week-Week-2.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/12/29/Cool-Thing-of-the-Week-Week-2.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=1f1a39ae-a57a-46c3-bc9b-cec89550817cThu, 29 Dec 2011 22:17:00 -0500Cool Thing of the WeekMikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=1f1a39ae-a57a-46c3-bc9b-cec89550817c1http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=1f1a39ae-a57a-46c3-bc9b-cec89550817chttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/12/29/Cool-Thing-of-the-Week-Week-2.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=1f1a39ae-a57a-46c3-bc9b-cec89550817cIntroducing the Cool Thing of the Week<p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>In the process of scouring the net, either out of my own interest, as research for possible articles or as part of my own development process, I come across tons of absolute gems.&#160; This new weekly column is going to be showcasing these various sites of interest, I hope you find them as interesting as I do!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>I spend a lot of time on the web, but I can’t be everywhere!&#160; So if you came across a really cool site, project, game or something else that you think will be of interest to a bunch of game developers, <a href="mailto:coolitem@gamefromscratch.com">let us know</a> and it may be featured as a future cool item.&#160; This is all about raising exposure to items that might be of interest to your fellow developer!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>Now, let me introduce the first ever Cool Thing of the Week!</p> <p>&#160;</p> <h2><a title="EbonyFortress.com List of free game development libraries" href="http://www.ebonyfortress.com/blog/free-game-development-libraries/" target="_blank">EbonyFortress.com – List of free game development libraries</a></h2> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>There are an absolute ton of free libraries out there covering all facets of game programming.&#160; One of the biggest problems is a matter of finding them!&#160; Often times, Google proves<a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=EbonyFortress.png"><img style="margin: 15px 0px 15px 15px; display: inline; float: right" title="EbonyFortress" alt="EbonyFortress" align="right" src="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/image.axd?picture=EbonyFortress_thumb.png" width="240" height="192" /></a> completely useless and forum links you may come across have long since been abandoned, leading you to page after page of dead links.&#160; Today’s entry really isn’t all that much of an exception, as it hasn’t been updated in close to a year.&#160; That said, it is still perhaps the most timely and complete list of free game related libraries I have ever found. </p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>This site breaks entries down into their general category ( 3D Graphics, 2D Graphics, Sound/Music, Networking, Video, Compression, Artificial Intelligence, Math/Physics, Scripting, etc. ), each entry contains a link to the library as well as the license it was released under ( such as GPL, MIT ).&#160; There are a ton of entries, well over a hundred and from my own experiences I would say it is pretty comprehensive.&#160; All the libraries I could think to look up were represented on this list, although in a few cases things weren’t where I initially expected them ( such as SFML being under general purpose instead of 2D graphics, although that location makes perfect sense as well. )&#160; There are some entries in there I would probably prune due to their age ( such as Hexen 2 or Genesis ) and I would love to see an indicator to show if thee libraries are still under active development.&#160; These small quibbles aside, the list is nearly perfect.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p>So, if you find yourself looking for a free library for just about any aspect of game development, this page is a very good place to start!&#160; I can only hope the author continues to update it, to keep it the wonderful resource it currently is!</p> <br /> <br /> <hr /> <br /> <br />Stay tuned for next weeks CTotW! Again, we look forward to your recommendations so <a href="mailto:coolitem@gamefromscratch.com" target="_blank">let us know!</a>. We will be keeping an <a href="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/page/Cool-thing-of-the-week-archives.aspx" target="_blank">active archive here</a>, which admittedly is a bit empty now. Comments of course are open on this post as well, let us know your opinion of the sites we choose! Got another similar recommendation, found it useful, didn't find it useful? Let us know in the comments below. http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/12/19/Introducing-the-Cool-Thing-of-the-Week.aspx
Mike@gamefromscratch.comhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/12/19/Introducing-the-Cool-Thing-of-the-Week.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=b0082f8c-aaed-44ac-9aef-5cf8024c408eMon, 19 Dec 2011 14:09:26 -0500Cool Thing of the Weekmikehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/pingback.axdhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post.aspx?id=b0082f8c-aaed-44ac-9aef-5cf8024c408e0http://www.gamefromscratch.com/trackback.axd?id=b0082f8c-aaed-44ac-9aef-5cf8024c408ehttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2011/12/19/Introducing-the-Cool-Thing-of-the-Week.aspx#disqus_threadhttp://www.gamefromscratch.com/syndication.axd?post=b0082f8c-aaed-44ac-9aef-5cf8024c408e